Superhero TV Shows VS Movies

Credit where credit is due. Inspiration for this post comes from IGN, and also I have been watching a fuckload of Arrow. Full disclaimer, I love Superhero Movies. I've blogged on all the recent comic book movies. The aim of this blog is to present the pros and cons of the movies and the shows.

Character Development

In any of the Spider-Man movies only a couple of people develop over the show. Peter Parker goes from nerdy highschooler to a Spider-themed Superhero. His antagonist will go from good guy to bad guy, sometimes back to a good guy. His aunt will get kidnapped and give hints that she knows Pete is Spider-man. Most superhero movies will have similar characters and develop them. 

But if you watch Arrow. If you watch fucking Arrow. Then you see the most ridiculous amount of character development for a superhero and his supporting cast. I'd even say the most out of any screened-superhero. For the first couple of episodes I hated Oliver Queen. I thought I had seen enough superhero movies to know that if I hated the protagonist not much would change my mind. But fuck me was I wrong. Oliver Queen is the man, he gets shit done. He has flaws and he recognizes them, and it happens over a believable length of time. 

World Building

If a Superhero has more than one villain appear at a time it is often criticized as been overcrowded. The Avengers worked so well because every major character had already been introduced. In a movie the audience expects to be entertained for the whole movie, and justifiably so, the filmmakers don't have the time to flesh out every character and introduce new ones in a single movie. Whereas a television show has nothing but time to introduce characters and develop their motives and relations. Over two seasons of Arrow, Oliver Queen has fucked like 200 girls (198 more than Peter Parker) and has 50 villains (45 more than all the Movie Avengers combined). 

There are so many secret societies running around in Arrow that it is hard to keep track of. Sure there are many alluded to in the Marvel Movies and some even brought to the forefront, but Arrow does a lot more with them albeit over a longer stretch of time. Movies barely scratch the surface of the source material, the first Thor barely showed any of Valhalla and over 5 Spider-Man movies we can't see anything as great as a Spider-Man Nickelodeon cartoon.

Actually Superheroes

What makes a hero a hero? How many times do you have to save the world to be considered a superhero? In the movies Tony Stark defeats a bigger Tony Stark to be considered a superhero. Spider-Man fights a Lizard-Man and is considered a superhero. Captain America defeats Red Hitler and is considered the world's first superhero. That is one guy, until the next movie. I would like to believe that in between movies these heroes are fighting other villains, but the movies keep telling us that nothing new has happened in a length of time. Spider-Man didn't gain any new enemies between the Lizard and Electro. In a television show you see the day to day lives of a superhero. And every day he is fighting some new guy with powers, or making a new friend. You see the inner workings of a superhero in a superworld.

Movies have their place. They are huge budget escapes with high stakes. Big events. Fun popcorn time. Large water coke with ice please. Deep-fried peppermint choctop. They are easy to see, you can see them with friends that barely care about the source material and every movie is different. TV shows require a lot more time and energy but the payoff is greater, even if the reward isn't equal to the time invested.

Get pumped for the Daredevil TV Show coming out.

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Too Excited for The Amazing Spider-Man 2

I've seen trailers before. I've even seen a movie or two. But this year is set to have some of the most exciting movies ever. I'm not normally one to be excited by trailers and heresay and whathaveyou but some of these movies look amazing. Such as...

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

The Amazing Spider-Man 1 may not have been the best superhero movie, hell, it wasn't even the best Spider-Man movie. It had it's fair share of problems, such as recapping an origin that movie-goers saw a decade ago, aborting plotlines like Peter's super spy parents, and fighting a bigger, stronger version of himself in the Lizard. But the new movies have Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield who are cast perfectly as Gwen Stacey and Peter Parker. The new movies were always being built to be part of a franchise and that would be the excuse for all the dangling threads in the first movie. With all that aside, check out the trailer.

Crime has had to adapt to dealing with a superhero. Super villains are beginning to pop up and team up against our Amazing hero. Just look at Electro alone. He shoots lightning bolts, that's what Thor does and Thor doesn't go around fighting Spider-Men in the movies. The odds have ramped up, Spider-Man has to deal with bigger threats. And Electro is just one of them. He also has to deal with a Robot Rhinoceros (AKA The Rhino) and a Super Villain hiding behind the scenes who knows Spider-Man's secret.

Sure, Spider-Man 3 suffered from having too many villains, but hopefully this one will be different.

There is also the mention of Aunt May hiding something about Peter Parker's past. The old thread in the first movie will actually be used. This is amazing, everyone thought the plot thread will just be forgotten, but there you go. We are finally going to learn that Peter Parker's past parents discovered a cure for cancer and then were killed by Carnage. Or not.

We have to all get excited for May to see how this movie turns out.

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Over the next week I am going to blog on upcoming movies that are shaping up well.

Follow me on Twitter and thank you for reading.